


Orpheus of the Sea

by Queen of Hearts (ElvenSorceress)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Het Relationship, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Het, References to Sex, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-04
Updated: 2013-06-04
Packaged: 2017-12-13 22:32:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/829627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElvenSorceress/pseuds/Queen%20of%20Hearts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He had been a musician once, but she loved it best when it was his voice that carried the melody. Others had always been entranced by him, whether by his charm, talent, or looks, but he was awestruck by her. </p><p>She was fierce and strong, but she was breaking. He knew loneliness. He knew being told you were inferior and worthless. He knew being lost and unloved. She wore all of it like vivid scars, like unyielding, crushing chains.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Orpheus of the Sea

**Author's Note:**

> \- Millian as Orpheus and Eurydice

He had been a musician once. His fingers graced strings and keys with effortless precision; his songs lingered in the air around him long after he'd ceased playing them. He knew the progression of chords and intervals between notes like instinct. It took listening to a song only a single time and it was engraved in his mind and memorized in his fingers. 

He could play anything he'd heard as well as create and improvise his own works, but she loved it best when it was his voice that carried the melody. 

He sang for her of adventures, of mystical lands and unknown, unparalleled magic. Of tropical islands, summer heat, and waves that glow in the darkness. Of ice crystals and snowflakes, mountains with treasure guarded by fearsome creatures, and ways to keep warm on long, cold nights. 

She leaned in close to him, smelling of dried flowers and woven fabric, and he hung on her every word. Others had always been entranced by him, whether by his charm, talent, or looks, but he was awestruck by her. 

She was fierce and strong. Clever, vibrant, everything paled in comparison, but she was breaking. He knew loneliness. He knew being told you were inferior and worthless. He knew being lost and unloved. She wore all of it like vivid scars, like unyielding, crushing chains. 

Her heart was so beautiful though made of smoldering embers. There should be fire. He longed to watch flames blazing inside her. Her heart should be bright. Blinding. But her light was so faded. 

He touched her hand and her long, delicate fingers wove through his. Though she laughed and smiled with him, the pain emanated from her like her lungs were burning and filled with water. He brushed her hair off her shoulders and thought of leaving kisses along her neck. He could hold her and defend her and breathe air past her lips. Something, anything to stop her from hurting. Anything to bring her back to life. 

He wrapped her in his arms and hugged her tightly, protectively. He composed verses for her of freedom and happiness and how he would love her beyond all existence. 

His words, his music flooded through the cracks in her façade and tears fell from her eyes. "I'm not strong," she told him. "I feel like I'm dying."

He brushed the tears away and held her face in his hands. "You are strong, love. I can help you. I'll do anything for you."

"You're leaving soon. I don't know what you could do," she said but stayed in his arms and let him hold her.

He wished he could bleed away all the strength he had so that she might have more. "Come with me. I can take you away from here. We can go anywhere. I can give you anything. I can love you. I do love you."

For a moment, she looked at him, searching his eyes and so full of hope that had long been absent. But then her gaze fell and focused somewhere in the distance. "I couldn't." She pressed her lips together and looked down, trying not to cry, trying not to break, but the glimmer that had been there for a few brief seconds was gone. Whatever was keeping her from agreeing was clearly worth risking misery and death for. A fresh wave of tears streamed down her face. 

There was only one thing he knew worth risking all the death and pain in the world for. "We can take your son with us."

"He's too young. It's dangerous. He'd get hurt. He'd miss his father. He's very close to his father."

It wasn't an outright rejection. He had to be convincing her at least a little. "Then we can return for him when he's older." 

The glimmer returned and she looked at him with worlds of emotion in her eyes. "We could?"

Floods from his heart tangled in a knot that pressed on his throat. "Yes. Whatever would make you happy."

She tipped her head as she stared at him, light shining through worry and fear and apprehension. "You love me?"

He smiled and couldn't help it. "More than life itself, darling. And I can think of at least a thousand ways I'd love to prove it to you."

The smile that crossed her face was the greatest, most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. She slid her hands to his shoulders and let her fingers dip underneath his vest and shirt. "Prove it then."

He hadn't realized how much he'd been dying for her permission until he finally had it. He pulled her flush against him and captured her mouth, kissing her until they were both willingly, blissfully drowning and there was no such thing as breath or life without each other. 

He'd never been particularly powerful or magical, but kissing her felt like both. It felt bright, pure, absolute. Stronger than anything. 

She ran away with him and he went through all the ways he knew and could think up to prove his love for her. He bought her new clothes and brought her gifts, taught her to run the ship and wield any weapon, spent hours sometimes days at a time using his mouth to lick and suck and tease her most sensitive flesh and using his hands to learn her like music. 

He held her every night and hummed songs against her skin, played games with her at the expense of anyone who dared cross them, sailed her anywhere she wanted to go, everywhere she wanted to see, watched her draw portraits of people they'd met and places they'd been but mostly of her son. He listened to all her songs and stories and wishes, and knew her better than he'd known anyone else in existence. 

She no longer smelled of dried flowers and musty cloth; there was nothing dull and lifeless about her. She tasted of sweet tropical fruit and smelled of fresh blossoms and living ocean air. Her hair was windswept, unbound, and long, her skin rosy and bronzed from the sun. She smiled and laughed brighter than anything.

One day he brought her jeweled rings and necklaces and she pressed them into his palm and told him she didn't need proof of his love - she knew it; better yet she felt it every second of every day. He told her he wanted it to stay that way. She kissed him and wore the jewelry, and caressed it absentmindedly when she thought he wasn't looking. 

He never had to question if she loved him, too. She understood when he spoke of things that haunted him and cared for him when he was injured. She rescued him when his charm and skill failed him, and knew without a word what he was feeling. They could glance at each other and have whole conversations without speaking. The rhythm of his heart matched the tempo of hers. When she slept in his arms and dreamed of waves and shadows and starlight, he'd always wake from the same dreams. 

Though sometimes, he would wake in the middle of the night to an empty bed, and he'd find her on deck, steering the ship, staring out over the horizon. It was the only time she ever looked unhappy. The only thing she'd change. The only regret she had. The only thing she wished for that he couldn't give her. 

He'd wrap a cloak around her shoulders and stand with her at the wheel. "Is it time, love? Should we return?"

She always answered no. He's still too young - not yet nine, not yet ten, not yet thirteen. What if he doesn't remember her? What if he doesn't want to be with her? What if he's angry? He should be angry. "How could I have left him?"

He slid his hands over hers, bracing his arms around her so she could lean on him if she chose. "You didn't leave him, all right?" He kissed her temple. "Not forever. The separation is only temporary. You couldn't stay. And a ship is dangerous for the biggest and strongest of men; it would be even more so for a child. We'll return for him as soon as you are ready and think he's a suitable age."

She tipped her head back and rested it on his shoulder. She said nothing more though he knew she was still thinking of her boy. 

He'd only caught a brief glimpse, but she'd told him plenty about her son. How he was clever and kind and incredibly affectionate. How he idolized the father who doted on him, but from the way the boy spoke and acted and treated everyone, she thought her son seemed like a better, sweeter version of herself. 

She'd drawn detailed sketches and hung them over their desk. She wondered what he'd look like now - if he still had her eyes and nose and smile. She wondered if he missed her, if he could forgive her, if he would still want her to hold him, if he'd want to curl up next to her and fall asleep while she read or sang to him. 

She wondered if he'd still cry quietly and never say why, but ask her to hug him until he wasn't sad anymore. She wasn't sure if her son knew that her relationship to his father had been tenuous at best. She wasn't sure if that was why he cried. More than anything, she wished she were able to take away his sorrow; she wished she could always hug him until he wasn't sad anymore.

If Killian thought he could've achieved it, he would've brought her son on board their ship long ago. He knew nothing of being a parent, and seeing as she talked of how her boy was very attached to his own father, it was not likely anyone else would even be considered for the role. But he could try. Maybe he wouldn't be a father, but he could be something. It was obvious how much she loved her son, and he so wanted to love him just as much. 

Who would've thought he'd long for a happy conventional little family? He'd never even considered settling down or being with one person before her, but he couldn't imagine life without her now. There was nothing else he'd ever want. 

She was drawing one afternoon, taking a longer time than usual and erasing portions, which she rarely did. She sketched easily from sight or memory so the image was probably unclear in her mind. When she noticed him staring, she said, "He turns fifteen in a week."

He studied her paper and the remnants of adolescent features framed by dark, loose curls. "A fifteen year old is no child."

"You think we should return?"

"I think a boy that age could be well suited to a pirate ship, yes."

She clenched the drawing tools in her hands. "If he'll even agree."

"What young man would turn this down?" He smirked and kissed her hair before going to direct the ship and crew of their new destination. "It will take at least a month before we're there."

"I've waited this long. What's another month?"

As it turned out, a month was all too brief and underappreciated. 

Had he known it would be the last of everything, he would've done it differently. He would've spent every second with her. He would have protected her. He never would have sailed near that town. He never would've let her die. 

He touches her soft, free curls, and doesn't know how to breathe. His heart can't beat. It's hollow. Dust. 

Her beautiful, bright, fierce heart is dust. How could anyone dare to harm her? 

He swore he'd never let anyone or anything hurt her. He was supposed to make sure she was always free and happy and loved. He'd never let that demon reptile live this down. He couldn't get away with this. He couldn't live without feeling her pain. 

If only the Crocodile had killed him instead. He gladly would've died for her. It should have been him. She should be alive, with her son, and far away from this cursed town. 

How can she be gone? 

Anything to bring her back to life. Anything. Anything. 

What is he without her? Without half of his soul? Without one hand? The Crocodile took his love, his music, his whole life.

He's anger. Rage. Vengeance. Emptiness. The last thing she felt was the demon ripping her heart out; it was all Killian could feel. 

He would destroy the Crocodile. Or he'd die trying. 

His bed is cold and far too large for just one person. His crew is too quiet and they tiptoe around him. The ship has too much and not nearly enough of her presence. He has to take down her artwork and put it away; he stuffs all her clothes and jewelry in trunks. Smee tells him to sell or trade it, but he never would. It's not his to barter with - it's his to look after and protect. 

His left wrist bleeds until he finds a witch who accepts gold, foreign herbs, and crystals in exchange for a replacement for his hand. 

There's too much aching in his chest, too many phantom pains of things that should be there and aren't.

He could sing but he can't properly accompany it. There's no way to let out the aching. There's no way to convey just how far from alive he is. No music. No Milah. The only songs he can create are singular melodies, unbalanced, plain, incomplete without any harmony. 

Somehow, the songs trapped inside him with no way out are still heard.

They come to him in dreams. Fairies of the shadows with severe, cruel, amoral magic. It's possible they aren't even real. Perhaps figments of his haunted imagination come to mock or torment him further. But they're all he sees in his mind. 

They're too small, too close to demons for complex emotions. They can hold only one feeling at a time and his anguish made them too sorrowful to bear. They offer him a possibility - a path through dreams and oblivion and curtains of fire, a way to the souls of the dead. 

No price, no catch as long as he no longer disturbs the shadow fairies with his silent music. 

There was never anything to consider or debate. He lets them take him through darkness. Through ice and pain and things far too anguished, blissful, twisted, and fragmented to be anything but dreams. 

Sounds, voices echo on stone but none form words he can decipher. The air smells of rainstorms and thunder and tingles with pulses of light. There's a queen in the shadows, guardian of souls, who looks no older than twenty. Her face is stoic and frozen. Her eyes solid black as she sits unmoving. She bids him plea without words. 

He lifts his hands to covey through gestures and finds he still has both. He must be dreaming. None of this can be real, but danger and fear prickle his skin. But with two hands, he knows exactly how to plead. 

Music surrounds him as if it were summoned and he bends and sculpts it until his pain, rage, longing, and agony are woven in chords and melodies and verses. His symphony tells of her pain and suffering, her yearning for freedom, his longing to provide it for her, his unparalleled unconditional love, her regret and love for her son, her strength and brilliance and beautiful heart, their wordless communication, synchronicity, devotion, harmony. He's her obverse. She's his complement. He's lost without her, he worries for her still. She must always be happy and free and alive. 

His music flows and resonates and pervades through everything until all light and colors everywhere are faint and gray. Until the queen of the dead has tears flowing down her marble cheeks. 

She waves her hand and a pool of light appears in the floor. The light morphs into Milah. 

He rushes to her but is stopped before he reaches her. He's not allowed to touch her. He can't touch her. They are figments, apparitions, thoughts without bodies. There's nothing to touch. 

Milah lifts her hand and turns her palm toward him. He mirrors the gesture. Were they something more than dreams, his hand would press against hers. Something glows between their hands red and warm and bright. Something that returns color. He can't feel her hand, but her warmth is there. Her soul is there. 

For a moment, there's no aching. There's no loss, no regret, no tragedy. She's with him, and she's happy. 

He begs she never leave him again, he begs to let her return with him beyond dreams and dark magic, he begs to stay in her place. But the queen answers sadly - he was granted this moment, he was granted an appearance, but he must return and she must stay. 

Milah's arms come around him as if she could hold him, and he feels her in him, intertwined, irreparably inseparable. He knows before she speaks. He remembers and feels it and knows he can't stay. 

There's more than vengeance and justice and loneliness waiting for him when he wakes. 

Baelfire is out there somewhere.


End file.
